


Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

by Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Bendy and the Ink Machine: Boris and the Dark Survival, Boris is Wally, Enemies to Friends, boris finds it, i guess?? theyre not enemies per se its just that they do become friends later, it doesnt have any importance to the plot but the buddy boris theory is banned in this household, me being a Fucking Idiot: i will now rwite a fic that doesnt take me Ages to finish, sammy loses his mask, spoilers but it did take me ages, the symphony of madness update: happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26358397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: In all the endless days he had stalked through the dark and empty halls of the Studios, Sammy had never met the wolf. At least, never properly met.
Relationships: Boris & Sammy Lawrence
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

In all the endless days he had stalked through the dark and empty halls of the Studios, Sammy had never met the wolf. At least, never _properly_ met.

This wasn’t the first occasion on which he had seen _a_ wolf per se. This one specimen was not his first encounter with its kind nor a particularly special one at that. In fact, for what little he had been able to observe through his flawed vision, he was in appearance exactly identical to the many others of its kind that the musician had seen hurrying and swarming through the corridors what felt like an endless time ago: some in packs, some alone, some closer and some farther from perfection, but all of them distinctly and recognizably in the shape of Boris.

Spotting those tell tale lupine silhouettes in the dim lights of the studios while he wandered through the building as what was then a foolish novice used to fill his horrid semblance with stomach-churling envy as he eyed (greedily, he recognized now with shame) the bodies granted to them, and bitterly wished he too had been allowed a prison that, even if cold and unyielding all the same, was not in a constant state of unstable drippy agony.

He was soon to understand, however, that his imperfect appearance was truly a blessing in a painful disguise: one that his Lord had most graciously bestowed upon him and all those of his flock to spare them from a gruesome end, as the scarred and merciless Angel would have never dreamt of harvesting the heart in his empty chest like she instead did as she rummaged through the wolves’ ribs. Thanks to her the number of cartoony canids had been reduced quite drastically to the point of near extinction, and the halls were now left prey only to herself, the mangled Butcher Gang, the occasional Searcher and the Ink Demon.

And Sammy.

As such, it was quite the surprise when he first noticed a floppy snout appear from the shadows. He hid in the walls, careful not to be seen while spying on the ink animal. At first, he dismissed it as the angel’s next victim and nothing more: nothing about it stood out, nothing in its form outside maybe the hardhat equipped with a flashlight seemed out of the ordinary.

The wolf walked around the room, round nose quivering as he smelled every inch of ink-covered wood: its ears shot upwards when he located a wrench, and it grabbed it with the approximation of a satisfied smile on its snout before quickly leaving to the next corridor.

Sammy remembered through his foggy memories how the other wolves he had seen had always seemed lost: in their pie cut eyes he learned to recognize uncertainty, fear, despair, an aimless tiredness and anger that he was reluctant to admit he felt as well in moments of mad questioning of his faith. None of the wolves had an objective. They merely wandered the halls trying not to become a deranged creature’s target, and each one had eventually, inexorably failed its desperate attempt.

This wolf, however. Through his weak sight Sammy had seen a kind of determination in its eyes together with understandable fright; he had seen a set goal, no matter how small.

Quite interesting.

He shall have kept an eye on it.

A proper meeting was to be had, he was certain; to better understand the wolf’s intelligence, and maybe attempt to convert it to his cause shall it have proven a sharp mind in that dog-shaped head.

* * *

While a meeting did happen, it was not planned by either party.

They happened to walk down the same hallway, but in opposite directions. Each stared at the other without making a single move, readily awaiting an attack that would not come from either side.

Maybe it was the helmet’s light shining very much directly in his mask’s eyes, but Sammy’s normally rather poor vision seemed to have bettered ever so slightly: now he could notice, paradoxically, the lack of any noticeable imperfections on the inky form before him. Not a limb too thin or too stocky, not an eye shaped wrong, no ear too short or long, no five fingered hand nor one too similar to a human’s. The patches on the overalls were perfectly symmetrical and so what everything else about the wolf.

The prophet found himself at a lack of words, of thoughts of his own. That ancient jealousy roared inside his dripping heartless chest and encouraged him to rip the perfect image before him into little imperfect shreds with the axe he was clutching, to destroy and mutilate its awe-inspiring form so that it could no longer pride itself on its admirable proportions, and so that it too would have had to accept the disgusting shapelessness he was forced into.

But in his mind there was only admiration. Admiration for such a gorgeous display of mercy in the dark hell he lived in. A divine sign that despite it all, if a creature this perfect could exist, a ray of light could have one day managed to traverse even the blackest of rivers.

_**“Are you a believer?”**_ he asked him finally, unsure what else to do.

The wolf stared with its pitch black eyes and answered nothing.

Of course.

Proper, perfect wolves do not speak.

Feeling impossibly silly, Sammy vanished in the nearest wall and did not wait to listen to the animal’s muffled footsteps walking past him hurriedly before retiring in his sanctuary out of enbarassment.

* * *

He was not sure how much time had passed since he had somewhat talked to the wolf, and to be quite honest he did not want to think about such a foolish performance on his part too much. He could feel his cold skin lit aflame as he brooded over his words: truly, what had he thought? Of course Boris did not speak, how could he have even managed to forget that? And why on Earth would he ever think that such a perfect replica would be able to answer a question with a non-existent voice?

In a desperate attempt to free his already pained mind from the reminder of his own graceless stupidity, he focused all of his energy and efforts into his sacred duties as prophet of the Ink Demon: he had prayed and sung for his Lord, delivered his wrath to the mindless roaming heathens, and visited the Harbour to check on his frightened sheep so that he could comfort their fearful visages with a sermon; he had spread the Demon’s image through the halls with his cutouts, leaving offerings at their feet, and preached to whoever or whatever had even the smallest spark of intelligence within them by writing on the walls. He had even briefly visited what remained of Jack in the sewers to offer his soul some kind of solace: his old friend had appeared quite delighted to receive a sudden violin serenade, if his soft babbling moans attempting to follow along with the melody were any indication, and Sammy had greatly appreciated his mellow enthusiasm.

He returned to the eerily silent halls of the music department with a sense of well deserved calm.

Then he heard a rockus.

He had expected a Searcher, or one of his lost flock, fresh with sudden memories and desperatly eager to play their instruments once again, to regain the freedom and life that had been lost to the ink.

He found the wolf.

Specifically, he found the wolf knocking down a trombone as it recoiled from the hot inky wax of a lit candle it had tried to hold in its thinly gloved hand.

_**“What are you doing?!”** _

His voice was, maybe, a little too loud. A little too angry.

The instrument had not been damaged, after all, and the sting of the candle’s heat had already been retribuition enough for this trespassing.

But he spoke loud and angry nonetheless, for he found this impromptu disturbance of his realm sacrilegious, and the wolf’s ears flew to the back of its head, spooked: it looked at him for a fraction of a second before bolting towards the exit like a steam powered locomotive.

Sammy considered, in his furious haze, melting through the walls and following it; he considered harshly grasping its perfect fingers if not both of its wrists to frighten it out of even attempting to steal from him again, making sure it would not forget the lesson it should have learned on the fateful day it had invaded the prophet’s territory. He found however that within the well of his ever twisting and ever churning mind he couldn’t muster the strength, as if the four words that had escaped his mouth had mortally tired his legs to the point where they refused to move.

The wolf had learned, he concluded as he felt what might have been left of his brains swim across his liquid head, making it heavy, heavy, so very heavy.

No need to scare it further.

He retired into his sanctuary dragging his feet as best as he could and stumbling through the wooden planks. He sat at his desk, laid his heavy fluid skull on it, and merely waited for slow hours in the bad copy of sleep that the ink allowed him.

* * *

The wolf made a specific kind of noise when causing a mess, Sammy learned slowly as time passed and their paths sometimes met but never touched, like parallel lines. He observed it hidden within the wooden planks so to never be spotted, curious of its behaviour and of its mannerisms. Its rockus was different from the incoherent chattering and half drunken stumbling of the savage Butcher Gang members, from the clicking heels or the rage-filled sounds of murder of the Angel, from the painful moans of unfortunate souls, from the hissing ice cold silence of his Lord. It was not anything intentional nor menacing: in truth, it was just… Clumsy.

That was how he recognized it as he was prostrated before a cutout, knee deep in devoted prayers but attentive enough to his sorroundings to not be at the receiving end of unpleasant surprises. Because he doubted any other creature would have trampled over a trash can by accident so close to an axe placed within Sammy’s reach.

The prophet turned slightly towards the wolf as the noise reached what should have been his ears: **_“There you are…”_** he murmured in an almost sing-song tone; one of his hands released the other from its clutch and wandered gracefully over the weapon’s handle, more an involuntary reflex than a threat.

A shadow in the corner of his vision cowered and took a step back, frightened.

_**“I will not hurt you.”**_ the prophet assured it as he forsook his axe in favour of the floor, pushing to rearrange his position so that he could fully turn to face the wolf. _**“Sorry to have scared you - force of habit, I’m sure you are familiar…”**_

The wolf wrinkled his goofy nose once or twice as he sniffed the air before nodding.

_**“What brings you here, good wolf?”**_ Sammy continued, slowly rising to his feet, **_“Not another attempt at taking what is mine, I hope… No, I can see it in your eyes. You don’t make the same mistake twice. Ah, but maybe… You wish to join me in prayer?”_**

This time the wolf was quick to shake its head. It spared an uncomfortable glance at the grinning cardboard cutout, fiddling with his stout fingers. Something about that nervous tick plucked the wrong chord in Sammy: his eyes reduced to slits behind his mask, his jaw clenched disdainfully.

**_“Of course,”_** he crooned almost sweetly, deliberately taking a couple of slow steps towards the animal, _**“Of course… You are not like the rest of us poor agonizing sinners, melting through this parody of a life, are you, now? You are a blessed creature, a work of art. You are a most fortunate being, aren’t you. Our merciful Lord, he has granted you a most perfect form already - of what use would**_ **prayer _be to you, my good wolf?”_**

The more the prophet approached, the more the wolf distanced itself with small steps, visibly uncomfortable. Its ears were lowering significantly and so was its snout, but still it did not flee. It was perfectly capable to - it would have been so easy too! Nothing would have stopped it from turning around and legging it like he’d seen it doing so well and so many times…

They were extremely close. The wolf’s big black nose could have been squashed against Sammy’s mask if its snout had been pointed any higher.

**_“You persist, I see.”_ **

The wolf rose its pitch black eyes to gaze sheepishly into the mask’s.

**_“Then? What is the motive behind you deciding to grace my department with your presence?”_** he asked, his voice still dripping with saccharine venom. _**“Are you here to belittle me, my pain, or my Lord?”**_

The wolf shook its head weakly.

One of its noodly limbs reached into a pocket of its overalls, and its large gloved paw emerged holding a pristine black cilinder with familiar writings looping across its surface.

A can of bacon soup.

He extended the food to the prophet, shivering slightly.

An offering?

No. No, it couldn’t be. The wolf loved its foodstuffs far too much to give them away like that, as gifts, especially (considering his previous and visiby uncomfortable reaction) if the receiver was the Ink Demon.

Seeing no response, the animal gathered courage and pushed the can a little closer to Sammy’s hand.

No, not for the Demon.

For…

For him.

He swallowed nothing - or nothing it would have been if his throat had not been made out of and clogged by ink.

_**“Ah.”**_ he spoke. He couldn’t reply.

The gloved hand nudged at his a little, encouraging him further.

He jerked away from the cold but solid touch. Then, slowly, he rose his hand and delicately laid his fingers on the can.

He accepted the gift, if with a little trouble finding proper words to accompany his motions with. He settled on them, eventually, and pronounced them very carefully: _**“A… Touching gesture. I fear I might… Not be hungry, at the moment, but… I am quite sure that, my Lord - he would find the fruit of your generosity very, very pleasant indeed.”**_

He nursed the cold alluminium in his even colder hands. The memory of hot soup during chilling winters came to him, and a tremor rapidly climbed his entire frame, causing a slight shaking in his limbs. The wolf’s ears arose slightly, worried, it seemed; he dismissed its concern with what he hoped would be parting words.

_**“Thank you, my good wolf.”**_ he whispered, slowly turning his back to him as he opened the can, **_“I… Will look forward to the day we might pray side by side. Shall your faith be revived in you.”_**

He kneeled once again and methodically poured the cold broth into a bowl to be offered to the flat wooden icon of his Lord. Footsteps moved away from him; first almost imperceptible in their movement, then faster, until finally even their echo had disappeared between the corridors.

* * *

His vision shook, and with it shook his prison.

Cold.

So terribly cold.

His face leaked onto the floor as if bleeding - hah! Bleeding! How could he even compare the chilling black creeks that from his sunken visage stained the pavement to the warm, hot feeling of blood on his skin? Damned be his humanity, the memories of better days that resurfaced inside his liquid skull no matter how hazy to further emphasize his torture.

His mask was gone, torn from his now damaged head by one of those cursed heathens and lost through the halls. He felt his limbs grow colder, colder, colder, and the pain was unbearable.

His vision growing darker and darker with every passing second, leaving him almost fully blind and trapped in an endless sea of fluid ebony, he ducked into the bottomless faux safety of a crack in the wall and walked, no, shifted, molded into the shape of his sorroundings, dripped through the spaces of what stood in his way, in search of something.

He slided his way through the maze of the Studios, desperate for warmth that was nowhere to be found. The candles, the candles! Quickly, quickly, he needed them, he needed to cup his shaking hands around the flickering flames, so that they may cleanse him if only momentarily of his freezing plight no matter how weak and insignificant they might have been. He needed to get back to the music department, to his sanctuary, immediately.

But he could not find them. Despite his strained efforts he could not sense their soft, bright heat directing him home like small lighthouses in the vaguely outlined dark all around him.

He couldn’t handle this a minute longer, couldn’t stand wandering a single second more as the biting chill softened and liquefied his body instead of solidifying it. He needed every little bit of warmth that he could find and he needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, needed it, immediately.

It seemed like hours, even days maybe, but - through the pain, the haze of agony, the weakened senses, he saw it, heard it, felt it: that softly weak and unstable spark of heat, pulsing with faux life far away…

He melted through what he thought must had been half the entire building in a blind chase fueled by the last infinitesimal drop of hope still swimming deep inside his dissolving body. Finally… Finally, in the darkness of his vision a flame burned to life with sepia toned licks of fire, propped on a piece of furniture, a table. He fell to his knees as he breathed heavily; his hands (he saw them like sketches scratched on dark paper) cupped religiously around the flickering light, slowly getting drenched in the slight comforting warmth it emanated.

He laid his head on the even surface, still trembling as he curled around the candle as best as he could, and closed his eyes.

The ink’s endless whispers sounded almost like a lullaby.

Sammy was brought back into the full of his consciousness by something soft and comfortable being draped over his back. He opened his hollow sockets with a groan; a gentle pressure laid on his shoulders as if to reassure him. He was grabbed very carefully by his arms (he recognized the material that was covering them, now - a kind of fabric, a blanket maybe - and he could tell he was staining it deeply) before being helped to his feet and gently dragged away. He was sat down at another table; fighting to not give into unconsciousness again he smelled something very familiar, an odor he had smelled many times before, just not at the specific temperature it was adjusting to. When the bowl was placed between his hands the scent revealed what he had first thought: plain old bacon soup, the kind scattered everywhere in the damned studios - although it was boiling and steaming, certainly nothing like the stringy frigid liquid inside the cans, and much hotter than the tepid broth found at the soup stations.

He spread his palms carefully around the bowl, sighing a sob as he felt its warmth seep in his melting body. He didn’t have enough strength to drag it closer, or he would have probably attempted to drown himself in the soup to better fight the unyielding chill that ran through him.

The sepia outline of a hand held a spoon in his direction. He didn’t have enough energy to grab it. The hand noticed, and dipped it in the bowl before offering him a mouthful of soup; Sammy was not quite sure if he had opened his mouth to be fed or if the utensil had just gently pierced his fluid skin. It didn’t matter; the hot broth mixed with his muscles, bones and blood, and the prophet felt the ink stains on the blanket around him begin to get absorbed back into his solidifying frame. He accepted a second spoonful, and a third, but despite the pleasant feeling a fourth one felt like far too much. No more, he made clear to his unexpected unknown ally with a weak shake of the head.

They understood, and understood how important the heat was to him as well, it seemed, because even as they kept slowly taking spoonfuls of soup for themself (unbothered by the ink he had left on the utensil while being fed) they never made a motion to move the bowl from his weak grip until it was completely devoid of any source of warmth.

They patted his back without a word.

He barely managed a thankful hum.

His ally seemed to appreciate it nonetheless.

Sammy sat, motionless, as they moved to put the bowl away; he felt the weight of their hand on his shoulder and heard their footsteps grow distant. A metallic clank betrayed the presence of an elevator outside of his vision’s reach, but he didn’t move. The energy he had regained from the boiling broth was not enough for him to feel confident walking out into the world again, least of all alone.

He stared into the sepia scratches of the table on which his arms laid, thin sketched out outlines of their original selves. The empty space between the yellowish lines that definied his and the table’s shapes was flat and empty, lacking any gloss; in comparison, the shifting ink his naked eyes refused to see appeared lacquered like a fine pair of leather shoes or carefully painted nails.

This newfound incorporeality made him uneasy.

It felt… drawn. Like a child’s doodle on the margin of a textbook page. He raised a finger to cover part of another: their lines overlapped and canceled each other into black.

How so terribly strange.

Sammy closed his eyes, forsaking the sketched world around him to return to the much more familiar darkness. He kept them closed for what to him felt like thirty seconds, give or take; in reality, they must have been about 15 hours, as unbeknownst to him his host had come back and left several times without ever interrupting his tired trance, maybe believing him asleep.

He noticed their presence only when he felt their hands wrap around his shoulders as they excitedly shook him awake. He jolted upwards, eyes snapping open to the still disorienting sketchy canvas around him and his ally’s newest finding nearly slapped squarely in his face.

He pushed the object a little further away from himself to be able to actually see it - but froze in place as he recognized the texture. His vision adjusted just enough to make out the edges of a horned silhouette, the colors signaled by the sepia scratches on its face faded and ruined with age. A hole cut a tiny toothless smile into a larger, more devilish grin.

Sammy held his mask in his hands, dumbfounded.

How his companion had found it was beyond him, but it did not matter. To think they had taken the time and effort to search for it in the maze that were the Studios, struggling through endless hallways littered with deadly roaming threats to retrieve the source of his vision - the muscian knew no words he might have chosen could have ever hoped to properly convey his gratitude.

The wood gently pushed against his inky flesh as he carefully placed the mask back on himself. He blinked once, twice; the world around him regained volume, width, weight, and its ethereal empty darkness gave way to much less floaty sepia tones reflecting with specks of light in his glossy, shifting flesh.

He rose his head to face the graceful stranger, words of genuine thankfulness already at his lips.

The wolf held his arm before he could say anything and gently dragged him through its modest lair with a large smile half hidden underneath its comical snout.

It lead him into what once must have been a men’s bathroom, now opened into a much larger room with a serious looking desk propped against the longer wall. On top of it stood tall four pitch black candles, their little flames flickering dutifully. It had been their scarce warmth that had led Sammy into the wolf’s den, and it had been the wolf who had spent hours of scavenging to set the room up so that it could, to some degree, crudely resemble the prophet’s hidden sanctuary.

Maybe it had found it when Sammy had caught it rummaging through the orchestra room; maybe it had been struck by Sammy’s passive, almost peaceful demeanor towards it, and it had decided to establish a true allyship between them by carving another refuge for him in the hell that twisted around them and offering him a friendly shoulder to lean on in his time of need. No matter the reason behind its actions, it had put far too much effort into this smaller sanctuary and in caring for Sammy to be bearing any ill intention towards the music director. The wolf looked at him as he took in the sight of its gift, waiting eagerly to know if its kind gesture was appreciated. It seemed almost insecure, as if worrying it had not done as much as it should have.

Sammy laid a hand on its snout very gently, as if to reassure it before even saying anything; the wolf smiled at him as he petted it slightly.

**_“You…”_ **

Are a good boy, he immediately thought.

**_“How can I repay your kindness?”_ **

* * *

Helping gathering supplies was rather surprisingly not the worst thing the wolf could have asked of him.

It was not excessively tedious, either - it almost helped, filling interminable hours with something other than fighting heathens, preaching, leaving offerings and mourning his humanity.

The wolf always welcomed him in the warmth of its lair when he decided to visit. It always treated him to a bowl of boiling bacon soup and eagerly made him listen to each new record it found around the winding halls, often even inviting him to join it as it danced to the tunes.

It had managed to find a banjo somewhere and had brought it back to its den to make the prophet play it; noticing how the shivering strings liquefied and cut through the poor composer’s frail fingers, making it impossible for him to play his most beloved instrument, the wolf had crafted him a pair gloves of sorts from pieces of wood. Sammy had repaid it by playing it every song he knew and every single one he had written, pouring his heart into every note as if he had composed each one of them for the wolf and for the wolf only.

It was different, playing for the wolf. It felt different from playing for his sheep, for Jack, for his Lord, for himself, and it certainly _looked_ different.

His eyes seemed to involuntarily flicker open and closed as he watched the animal dance to the notes of his banjo, briefly returning to the dark world outlined with yellowish brown lines he had seen when missing his mask.

The wolf’s entire anatomy changed drastically in those extremely quick moments: smooth noodly limbs turned meatier, less flexible, the snout disappeared entirely, eyes opened in a rounder shape, clothes’ textures changed into more natural ones, smiling lips became wider, their grin more and more recognizable as he focused on them.

He played, and watched it dance.

The wolf twirled with a pirouette. The world flickered off, and his gaze met Sammy’s.

**“You!”**

The wolf stumbled and pulled itself in a cowering stance, frightened.

Sammy had nearly dropped the banjo to the floor. Now he grabbed onto it with feverish strength as if afraid letting go would have caused him to dissolve into nothing.

He stared deep into the animal’s pie-cut eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting desperately for that sketched face to appear again.

His sorroundings retained their sepia colors.

The wolf raised its ears slowly, concerned.

**_“… It was… Nothing.”_ **

The face had already disappeared in his shifting mind.


End file.
